TOP CMO: Kyle Christensen, Splash Inc - 'Game Changing Marketing'

Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  00:01

We're in a space where you probably want to avoid taking risks as much as possible but by the court all marketers here and you got to take risk at some time. This

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Ben Kaplan  00:11

is the podcast where we go around the globe to interview marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands, fastest growing companies and most disruptive startups.

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Ben Kaplan  00:25

This is TOP CMO.

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Jackson Carpenter  00:30

Today I'm speaking with Kyle Christensen, CMO and CRO of Splash Inc, a company that holds sports contests where real money or entertainment amongst friends and groups include Splash sports office football pool and run your pool. Kyle has over 16 years of experience in global marketing. He's a member of the Wall Street Journal's CMO network, a strategic adviser for winnable and the founder and CEO of a venture capital firm. Before Splash he held marketing leadership roles at point that a sports betting platform as well as industry staples like NatGeo, Facebook, Netflix and Warner Brothers. In this episode, we'll discuss how upcoming challenges can differentiate themselves to compete against industry giants, how influencer marketing is quickly becoming one of the most impactful channels and how to navigate sensitive messaging in a regulated industry. Let's get into this and more with today's episode with Kyle Christensen. Kyle Christensen, thanks so much for joining us today on the TOP CMO podcast.

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  01:37

Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

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Jackson Carpenter  01:39

Now, Kyle, for those who aren't familiar give us the kind of elevator pitch for Splash sports. Yeah,

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  01:46

so Splash sports is a peer to peer gaming company, we have three different gaming platforms. So one is runnier pool.com. One is Office football pool.com. Those are completely free to play. So you know, anybody including grandma, your your aunts, and uncles, your co workers, all that it's just really kind of meant for people that come together over sporting events, and really have a lot of fun, through a friendly competition and ultimately creating community. And then our third gaming platform is Splash sports that is actually for real money. It's still a lot of the same games that you play, but it is not you playing against the house against a sports book, it is you playing against other people for real money. So yeah, you know, that's kind of the overview of the three companies in the portfolio, a couple that are free to play, and then one is for real money, but all really centered around community via competition.

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Jackson Carpenter  02:39

And how do you think about your audience segments for those different platforms?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  02:43

It's a great question. You know, we try and think about it in a couple of different ways. One is the Commissioner, that is really, they're the center of the gaming universe, they're the ones that take the initiative to start the game, write the rules, and invite all of their friends over time. And, you know, they're so critical to what we do, we call them our lifeblood, internally, because they just really kind of drive adoption over time. And, you know, we see that for a lot of our different results, then you have the players, you know, the players are the ones that are really just looking for some action, you know, not only are they going in and making their picks, but they're talking a little crap to each other, depending on, you know what other people make, but it's really like a fun game theory. And I keep going back to community, but that's what we see, through a lot of our games. Since it is so multiplayer, you're not playing against a black screen, or a sports book itself, where it's just it feels really isolated and single player, like most sports betting is, this is really you play against multiple people in a contest and playing four games of skill, which ultimately have some fun prizes at the end.

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Jackson Carpenter  03:47

Now you had a fantastic career leading up to joining Splash sports that included roles at Facebook, Netflix, National Geographic. Tell me a little bit about that background, and how that's shaped your view of Splashed boards?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  04:02

Yeah, that's a great question. And first and foremost, you know, very lucky to work at a lot of amazing places. And basically, I'm a I'm a Marvel nerd, so forgive the analogy but collecting a couple of Infinity stones along the way to put me to where I am in my marketing journey, but kicked off it places like Fox Sports and Warner Brothers, where it's part of the creative team cutting trailers, cutting highlights, you know, really getting into the weeds of, you know, something that I think all marketers really enjoy to do is that creative side of the house and then I popped over to Netflix and I think that's when, you know, really at the end of the day, I started to understand how important it is to understand like the full business context I listened to one of the episodes you did with John Solomon from their body and you know, he talked about one of his big pieces of advice was you know, really trying to understand the business as a whole. And I'll never forget if you if you have a minute for story time, but I I worked on Narcos season one and season two. And you know, Narcos season one, it was a big hit. And we were starting to think about our strategy for season two. And we thought we had this very clever idea of announcing that Pablo dies, even though everybody knows Pablo Escobar dies, put together a great little plan. And I remember presenting it to the executive staff. And afterwards, Reed Hastings was like, This is great, guys. But why are we doing it? And you know, as marketers, we're like, Oh, crap, you know, what is he getting that and he's basically was telling us, You guys did such a good job and season one that ultimately, you got that male audience 25 to 54. To sign up and subscribe to Netflix. Now you need to go after females 25 to 54. And I just like something that of course, only somebody like him can can really articulate it got me thinking, there's more than creating beautiful trailers and all that stuff. So as I moved to National Geographic, and Disney were sort of tasked with taking an analog business and making it very digital forward and friendly, which is amazing. And then came over to Facebook while meta. But I was working on the Facebook app to launch the Facebook watch product. But ultimately, before I left, I was working on the more Together campaign, the big brand campaign that was kind of going on right after Cambridge Analytica. And we found that the Facebook group product was really kind of one of those things that we we wanted to highlight to a lot of different people because at the core of it was still that community aspect. And so, you know, I say that because once I was sort of introduced to Splash sports, I immediately got those Facebook group fives, whereas like somebody who had this real idea and wanted to create community around a problem and come to solve it, I get that same sense of what we're doing at Splash. You know, I had to stop in between Splash and Facebook as a CMO of Portsmouth. And we were, you know, we were an underdog. We are a secondary operator in a sports betting world ruled by the DraftKings and the Vandals of the world. And we tried to play their game and really didn't have the reserves to ultimately compete. And so, you know, I started to understand what the consumer mindset is in the gaming space. And you pair that with this sort of community aspect, that I've really learned at Facebook via you know, network effects and the social graph, it just seems like it's, the industry is ripe for disruption. And I think we're well on our way to doing so slash.

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Jackson Carpenter  07:30

Now, we hear on the podcast frequently about the importance of building community. And I think the big question in a lot of marketers minds is great, but how practically, how do you go about thinking about building a community? And how have you done it in Spa sports? And in previous roles? Yeah,

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  07:50

it's, it's a question I think about a lot for multiple reasons. One is just because you have to show up authentically, right, you can't just show up and start a discord or build a contest with Splash or running a poll, you have to meet the consumers where they are. And if you don't understand that, then you're you're gonna have a hard time building that community. So that's what is it's really kind of finding out and speaking the same language and showing up where they are. But I think most marketers know that. So what we need to try to do and figure out is, you know, what do they ultimately want, and you do that through consumer research and insights, but ultimately giving them what they want, which is a product where they can, you know, have fun compete against each other. And, you know, listen, I'm a big sports nut myself. And so I understand that, and apologies in advance for plugging all the Colorado teams but, you know, if I see somebody talking about the Denver Nuggets, and you know, they're gonna be a big pile of mine, but if they're talking about the Minnesota Timberwolves, you know, I might talk a little crap to them. And, you know, at the end of it, I think that's what every single person wants to do. So, you know, this is I think our product inherently sets us up to build community just via the games that we have. But you know, to any marketer out there, it's really kind of understanding and meeting those consumers where they are and behaving like them. Right. You know, that's, that's ultimately what they want is some sort of relationship. And that's what builds a community itself. Well,

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Jackson Carpenter  09:17

tell us a bit about the nuts and bolts about how you've been building Splash sports, what channels have you emphasized? And I'd be interested in hearing about anything that's worked phenomenally well, and anything that's absolutely crashed and burned?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  09:32

Yes, of, Wow, this this cuts deep in good ways and bad ways. Here's what I would say is that, you know, credit to our co founders, but we went out and bought two businesses before we stood up Splash boards, and they had millions of users already pre built into that. So from that side of the house, it's really about brand awareness, getting them to understand what Splash boards can offer, and ultimately getting them to port over and you know, speaking of channels that are working really Well, that is one of them, it is going to take time, you know, it's really hard to get people to change behaviors, especially when they liked the product. But we think we offer enough to where they ultimately will find their jobs easier, especially as a commissioner to come on over, they don't have all the responsibilities that they had before, we'd like to take that off of their plate. And then from a player perspective, you know, they can come and play with their traditional group that they always have. But they can also go out and find other ones, which I think is pretty valuable. Now, that said, I will say that we had resounding success on meta and Google for when you're pulling off this football pool, are free to play sites. And I learned the hard way. And I will say this to anybody, don't try and take one playbook over from another. Because we found out that we tried to take the free to play playbook and bring it over to the real money side of the house. And it did not work, you know, we ended up spending a large amount of money, too little success. That ultimately hurts still when we talk about our CAC and retention and everything as we talk to investors and stuff like that. So that was a channel that did not work. But surprisingly, as we went out and tried to find others, and I know that the Creator economy as a whole is, is really getting their day in the sun and rightly deserved, we found some core influencers who are very sports centric. And that ultimately, we found a sweet spot as far as number of followers and number of posts and everything like that. So getting really formulaic, but those consumers that they are able to bring into the platform are working as well, so much so that that's strictly how we're focusing our marketing moving forward for Splash boards, because both of those acquisition channels are proving that those players that they bring on are profitable from day one. Now, I will say that we have a pretty unique value prop for our commissioners as well, the people that start the games, which is we pay them for every new user that they bring on, we do a rev share for every amount of dollar that comes on platform that we take as a software service. And then ultimately, we work with advertisers and brands. And if they want to sponsor some of these contests, because some of our users bringing, you know, 10s of 1000s of players into it, we will do a rev share with them on the sponsorships as well. So they're making a pretty penny on the back end as well for bringing their audience over. And then the players are playing those games and absolutely loving it and, and sort of eating up all the content that the Creator builds around that as well.

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Jackson Carpenter  12:36

One of the things I wonder about is when you're evaluating kind of creators to partner with, how do you know ahead of time, which ones are likely to be successful? And which ones are going to flop? I think something I hear frequently from companies is that they're engaging influencers across different platforms. And they're sometimes surprised at the outsized result that one influencer might get and the flop that another might get when they're looking just at Yeah, I would

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  13:07

advise not to just look at the numbers, you really got to understand what the influencer or creator is building, are they very centric to your your platform. And so by them talking about their day to day videos, or posts or blogs, or podcasts, does your product seamlessly fit into it? You know, listen, it wasn't easy. We had a lot of influencers that didn't work, we had a lot of partners that didn't work. But what I will say is, get a thesis down, ultimately, build out a playbook and formula that you think will work for them. And you know, establish a relationship. You know, the great thing about the creators that we know work well on our platform is I can shoot them a text whenever and say, Hey, that was a great video, what do you think about X, Y, or Z? Or, Hey, we got a big contest coming up, do you think it might make sense to promote it in this way versus that and it is a dialogue because I don't want the last thing I want I think the team wants is to be barking orders into create a statement of work that has you must you know, have like a robot three tweets and one video and Lincoln bio and stuff like that, because we've just found that that doesn't work. And that's how to that's how we've gotten to our sweet spot. I will also say or just we're not ready you know, this were a series a company trying to disrupt but we we need to make sure we save our money. And so some of the bigger influencers who like command some dollars up front, or what have you, we just can't afford to do that right now. And a lot of the partners and creators that we've worked with have really leaned on that incentive because we do believe it is fair to compensate them on the back end for performance but we also don't want to pay that money upfront, and ultimately be hung out to dry if we pay five, six figures or whatever it is, and they only get you know, a handful signups that that's a big loss for a company of our size. So, you know, listen, there is no special formula, I'd say just really work to establish a relationship and a dialogue. And then, you know, tinker and toy with it until you find the right method.

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Jackson Carpenter  15:16

What are your thoughts on kind of sweet spot for saturation within a given influencer niche? So occasionally, you'll see a company that will just do like, one feature in one YouTube video with an influencer, and they may not see an immediate payoff, is there a necessity they hit a certain level of saturation? Or what are your thoughts on that?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  15:42

It's a good question, I'm gonna answer it a little bit differently, if you don't mind, just because of our experience in working with some of these creators and influencers. So just to give you context, on the gaming landscape, as a background, you know, a lot of the sports betting companies, those games have chances, where they're setting the lines and the odds, they go and pay these creators a flat fee for doing a deposit, or getting a player to deposit and connect their wallet to their platform. And they pay a pretty penny for that, right. But what we've found, you know, they've been doing it for the last three plus years, you know, while five plus years that gaming and sports betting has been legal, that the market has actually become saturated for these creators, and they're, and they're kind of running out of ways to ultimately make money from the sports books. And so what we've kind of gone back to market and thought a bit more about is like, not only how can we give them that and supplement that revenue for them, that is in a saturated market, but help them build a community. Again, I'm gonna go back to community until I turn blue in the face, but you know, ultimately helping them with first party data, you know, a lot of these influencers that we work with have other business initiatives and things that they're trying to stand up outside of the game that they put on Splash. And it's like, hey, you know, Jackson, if you you are selling a coffee, or you have a newsletter subscriber or a subscription or something like that, we will give you that first party data as part of our agreement to so that you can then go out for the people that opt in, you can go out and say, you know, Hey, would you guys like to sign up for my newsletter, I this is the value prop that we're giving, or, Hey, I'm starting a coffee line or a clothing line or whatever it is. So trying to supplement some of that value that we're ultimately giving, is how we're trying to break into a saturated market. Now, to your question, I guess I I quickly respond and say, We haven't got to that point where we're trying to where we're saturating or you know, it's trying to find a sweet spot where we might have too many or too little messages. But I'm sure we'll get there soon enough. So more to come there. But right now, we're still getting our sea legs underneath us. As far as who the right people are. And then what's the value prop we can give them outside of what everybody else is offering.

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Jackson Carpenter  18:49

Kyle, I wanted to ask you about a article I read a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal. The article was reporting on the secular decline of television advertising, not just across cable, but also streaming. I don't think that comes as a surprise to anyone. But what did surprise me was seeing that live sports television was the only segment of television that was continuing to hold and even grow revenue and ad dollars. What are your thoughts on that? And what are what are the lessons for you as the CMO spaceports

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  19:27

Yeah, I read the article as well. I think it is spot on in some instances. Here's what I would say is that you know it I would break it out into buckets. One is that sports is having a larger moment than it has before which is incredible to say right you know you think about the NFL and you think about the NBA and how a lot of these sports have grown and then you you add on the Caitlin Clark effect I can't wait to see like I think she debuts tonight. And you know the Taylor Swift factor driving to the NFL, it's just creating this buzz around sports set is more welcoming to everyone versus how it's sort of been, you know, quartered in the past. Right. So that's one side of the house, there's just more eyeballs there, in general. And it is sort of the last frontier, you know, having come from the company that really disrupted a lot of the traditional cable model, you know, you can understand that people have changed their behaviors overall, and how they consult, consume long form content. And, again, nothing wrong with that, I think it's part of our evolution as entertainment consumers. And then I would just say, lastly, you know, a lot of these streaming platforms who are now getting into ads, which ultimately seems like live TV, and everything's so cyclical, they're not very good at it, right? They haven't done it in the past. So creates this poor consumer experience, which ultimately gets us back to what the article is saying is that, you know, a lot of these traditional models or streaming platforms, who are adopting traditional models have fallen a little bit under their targets, and that live sports is really the last frontier to make sure that you aren't getting everything that you're paying for. So that's one bucket of what I've taken. But one of the things that we're trying to think through is how can these games that we offer, be complimentary and ancillary to what the these brands are building. So we've been lucky enough to partner with great brands like Jack Link's tailor made the NBA for the inseason tournament, and really have been used as an amplification tool to what they're building as an overall marketing strategy. So I'll give you a couple of examples. But obviously, the NBA just launched their in season tournament last year, and it's brand new, you know, anybody who's outside of being a die hard hoops head doesn't really know and understand the rules and regulations, what better way to get people to understand than to create a game around it offer an amazing prize for Yeah, I think our game was two tickets to the All Star game all, you know, expenses paid. That's pretty cool. And you have to play you have to play to win in order to get those tickets like now you completely understand the product. Same with tailor made, they were launching their still to driver last year, well, if we center the pricing around a chance to win this beautiful driver that's going to help you drive it 300 yards, you're gonna get 35,000 people to sign up and say, Hey, I would like that. But to tailor made its credit, you know, only was so we had 35,000 people signed up 34,997 People are not going to win that club. But if you get an email afterwards to say, Hey, Jackson, thanks for playing apologies that you didn't win. But here's 20% off and free shipping. Now it makes it a little bit more reasonable. And Mesa a good return on investment. So you know, what I would say to the live sporting events, and how marketers can show up sure, you know, you can pay for the big TV spot, Superbowl spot, March Madness, and rightfully a lot of a lot of brands should do that. That said, you know, I think allowing people to play in these free to play entertainment only style games that surround this creates this really cool, fun environment for consumers to engage in. And then I'll kind of go back to community at the end, you imagine doing that a few times, you know, the consumer is looking for that email to say, hey, when's that next contest, you're going to running so that I get a chance to play for a really cool prize? So, you know, very long winded answer to your question, but you know, kind of had to break it out into buckets and how we're viewing it?

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Jackson Carpenter  23:30

Well, you touch on a question that one that I've been thinking about a lot lately, which is when is it appropriate to use interruptive marketing tactics? So for example, placing an ad in the middle of, you know, someone streaming on Netflix, versus non interruptive experience, for example, sponsoring a game? Like what what's the what's the way as a marketer that you should think about interruptive versus non interruptive? Engagement?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  24:01

Yeah, here's what here's how I think about it holistically, you know, you never want to create a poor consumer experience. And you know, that's both on the platform that's allowing it to happen. And the marketer itself, who's showing up in that disruptive environment, unless you don't have something really compelling to offer them. Now, you can completely control 100% how these things shows up if you're buying those spots in the disrupted place. But if the the consumer benefit is so good, I think a lot of the times that consumer can get over it and then so what I would say to that is that it all needs to tie together, right? Whether it is you know driving people to a game that you're creating or it's driving people to a moment in time or something that you really want them to think about. If it all dials back to a core positive net positive consumer experience, then I think it's fine. You know, again, I go back Do the platform's have to make their money, you know, they have a revenue target to hit. And you need to show up as a brand where those consumers are. And so if you've done that work, and you create a really compelling message, I don't think it is a bad thing to do. Now, again, I've, I'm plugging my own book. But I think creating a game and an engaging tool to get people to dive in willingly is a much more efficient way to do so. But, you know, I understand the other side of the coin as well. Well,

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Jackson Carpenter  25:28

you touched a bit earlier on regulation. And I wanted to ask you, because squash sports is kind of in this unique spot being in a highly regulated industry. What unique challenges is that pose as you've been marketing the product? And has it created any opportunities for you that might not have been there without without being in a space where, you know, everyone is regulated?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  25:51

Yes. Well, there's a, there's a couple of things to say there. One is I am not a lawyer, so do not take any of my advice to heart. And, you know, listen, I mentioned earlier that I was on the sports betting side and the game of chance side, before I came to Splash boards, I will tell you that each state is their own, you know, property and territory. And they have different rules and regulations. Just to give you an idea of what that looks like, I believe now that there's 25, legal sports betting states, somewhere like Louisiana, the state police control that somewhere like Florida, the state tribes controller, in New York, the government is controlling the rules and regulations. So you can understand that each state in a sports betting landscape is completely unique. It's the same when you go over to a game of skill, which is what slash and all of our platforms offer. And so we have to establish relationships with a lot of these different states and get them to understand what we're trying to offer as a product. So that we're not lumped into a sports betting category itself, right. So it takes time, it takes regulation, understanding, and it takes, you know, really getting them to know a new product. That said to your to your point, like there are some unique advantages, right. And one of them is just like the community building aspect that I talked about, you really can't do that. In a sports betting environment. Sure, there's like, you know, chats and discords, and things like that, where you, you guys can talk about what you do, but you can't really exchange it. And it's not really peer to peer. And that's what we try and lean our hat on is that there is this game theory that is evolved. And there are people who have made millions of dollars just by understanding, you know, players and how they react, and then ultimately, the player across from you, you know, pretty similar like poker, right? Half the time you're not playing the cards that you have, you're playing the person across from you. And once you get an understanding of all of that, it just makes for this really dynamic environment that extends beyond, you know, the final whistle, if you will, for each one of these games. And yeah, it's just, you know, again, go back to this community aspect where it's, you know, these people come together because they enjoy playing with and against these other people so much, that it's just something that not a lot of other products, let alone categories can offer. One

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Jackson Carpenter  28:11

question I have having worked in regulated industries, myself, is the frustration as a marketer, when you come up with a great campaign, maybe a great bit of copy, and you hand it off for legal review. And the lawyers take their red pens to it just absolutely got your ideas. I'm curious what advice you have for marketers who have to work with legal review, one on how to communicate what you're trying to achieve in a way that they'll understand and to and how to, like, build around legal sensitivities.

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  28:50

Yeah, it's a great question and something that I think our legal team does such a good job of, but it's just like anything, you have to take them along on the journey, right? It starts with you know, consumer interviews, you know, surveys qual and quant getting them to really synthesize what our core user that's ultimately gonna make us profitable and, and make this company successful are wanting out of the product, how they're talking about the product, and how they behave, behave, when you say certain terminology, that is getting them to understand that then breaking it down into, you know, ultimately a messaging cadence, Funnel System, whatever you want to call it. Again, bringing them along on the journey and ultimately getting them to understand this is how I'm going to use this term. Will it work? Will it get us in trouble? Will they get our hand slapped? Or will it get us a cease and desist letter, you know, it's all these sort of risk and reward type things that you really have to balance? You know, I will say we're, we're in a space where, you know, you probably want to avoid taking risks as much as possible. But you know, I think we're all all marketers here and you got to take risk at some time. I, and frankly, like, gaming has been around for the longest time, right? So there's some terminology that's just built into the vocabulary of a consumer. So if that's the case, how do you get them to be educated on we can't use this word anymore. If we use this word we can get in trouble. Do we introduce a new word? It's all kind of part of the fun challenge that we have to face in this gaming environment, and especially differentiating ourselves in between the sports betting and what we provide to our consumers. But, you know, long winded way to say keep them along on the journey, get them to understand what the consumer wants, and you'll find a solution.

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Jackson Carpenter  30:40

I believe that was Frank Luntz, in his book words that work who talks about his work transforming the gambling industry into the gaming industry? And I'm curious if you have thoughts in a space that sometimes controversial about messaging and how to how to hit the right balance of being understood, while being delicate to the sensitivities of folks who may potentially be standing in your way?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  31:09

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think one of the things that we constantly try to avoid is gambling, because that is a game of chance that we have been talking about. But if you use gaming, you know, a lot of people think video games and, you know, Twitch streams and stuff like that. So we're actually trying to land sort of this peer to peer multiplayer, vocabulary, if you will, and then trying to land that within, you know, our core constituency, and people that ultimately want to play in our games. That said, you know, that might be a bunch of marketing jargon. So we really got to go out and test a lot of this. And make sure that we have the right and the runway to actually establish this. But yeah, it's it's such a good question. Something that keeps me up at night is like, how do you accurately describe what you're doing? Differentiate yourself from core competitors who might lump you in into one bucket, but ultimately land the value prop that we do? And we're leaning into this peer to peer multiplayer space for now, but who knows? It could change.

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Tom Cain  32:14

Okay, so here's what I'm thinking. It's a Western

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32:20

with a sci fi twist.

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Tom Cain  32:24

But there's also a film noir plot running in the background. And dinosaurs because why not? Right? Take the dinosaurs down a little bit. Okay, no dinosaurs. But a little bit of romance is always welcome.

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Tom Cain  32:49

And some BS Yeah, we have to throw some zombies in there. Your vision, our craft, topthoughtleader.com

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33:02

on, listen to the first draft again, back to the show.

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Jackson Carpenter  33:06

Kyle, I'm curious, cross your career and all the great companies you worked at what's your favorite campaign that you've ever worked on?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  33:15

Put me on the spot. This is sort of out of the blue. And you can go on YouTube and check this out. But it was for a Darren Aronofsky show that we did at National Geographic, that Will Smith narrated is called one strange rock. And it was about basically planet Earth and how it is ultra weird. And we're all just incredibly lucky to be in this place. And, you know, at the times that the DJ was probably hotter than any other artists in the country doing production for the biggest names and also, you know, selling out concerts left and right, we propose the idea for him to write a song about it, and put it out there. And he did. So I was able to like, go and watch the creative process. He put together this amazing song and, you know, a couple days and we shot a video for it and was able to insert it into the show itself. Because it was just so well received. And it was just something that was incredibly spontaneous, that ultimately turned into a really cool fun campaign for, you know, a show that I never thought I would do, you know, at first working in, in sports, and then ultimately going into the the theatrical side and doing things for movies and shows. This was something that kind of really touched all the things that I enjoy to do.

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Jackson Carpenter  34:40

I'm curious in that sort of very analytically driven marketing world. What is it that moves you to take creative risks that might not have some empirically backed hypothesis at the outset? at something like going to xat and making this song,

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  35:03

it's a, it's a great question. And I would actually kind of expand it into, you know, frankly, what I'm doing and spending a lot of my time at Spa sports right now on which is on the revenue side. But you know, it's ultimately I go back to what I was saying earlier about understanding the core business, what's the core business loop? What's the core function? How do you understand those metrics? What are what are the main things driving that? And what's driving the acquisition? And what's driving the retention? And ultimately, who are we trying to reach? You know, the, the Netflix example I gave earlier, where we're thinking we're gonna put 10s of millions of dollars behind Narcos season two, and a very spot on question as to why because we thought we had already got those users, it really gets you to think in a sense of like, how am I expanding our reach our frequency, our, our channels, so that ultimately, were showing up showing up authentically. But not, you know, spreading the peanut butter too thin, right? It's a very, very delicate balance. But ultimately, you can kind of go with your gut, you can look at the data all you want. But I'd like to think that we're sort of the last creative, little egg standing in this world of, you know, media and customers and all this. So you have to take some risks, you have to go with your gut, and that, you know, go with what's got you there. I, frankly, as I was listening to this podcast the other day about Michael Jordan, in his own words, and he was talking with Warren Buffett and Michael Jordan asked Warren Buffett, you know, hey, how do you make all these great decisions, and he's like, go with my gut. And Michael Jordan in his head was like, wow, so I do the same, right? It kind of all goes back to you can look at the data all you want. But ultimately, you should have enough understanding of where you're at, in this stage, whether it's a company life, your marketing career, and goes, I'm curious,

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Jackson Carpenter  36:55

Kyle, what are the most important trends you're seeing in marketing today? And how can marketers adapt to them?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  37:01

Yeah, I touched on it a little bit earlier on the creators too, but I'm sure you've read the golden Goldman Sachs report, you know, that this creator economy could reach half a trillion dollars by the end of 2027. I think there's so much there. And honestly, I feel like as marketers when, you know, if you work with these creators in a really authentic way that represents what they do, but ultimately drives your core business goals, you're supporting them, right? That is their career, that is what they've chosen to do to make money and provide for their, their families, and whatever endeavors they want to continue to chase. And so I really trying to, to put my finger on how to best show up and make it a two sided dialog, right, where I'm not just cutting a check and handing it over to an agency, we're gonna give them a percent of that, then they have to put out two posts, and then we're done. We never talked again, I want to, you know, get in the room with these people understand what their goals are, and how I can help them. And ultimately, you know, I think if that feeling and that understanding is relayed both ways that they're gonna show up, and they're gonna do everything they can that's ultimately make them in a position to ask for money, right. So that's, that's something that I'm seeing from a trend basis. The other thing I'd say is just, I'm struggling personally, I'm trying to understand where like, you know, the the paid media landscape is going, you know, I think we all know, the iOS and meta and Google changes. And those were just, frankly, channels that I've leaned on and use as a crutch for a lot of things. And they're going away, I see it in the performance of the things that we do a lot of the time. So what is that next frontier? How can we continue to expand our reach and land our core audience as we scale? And I don't know, that's, that's a good question. And we shouldn't be afraid to say it. But we should also be going out and looking for whatever that next great channel is. I'm curious

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Jackson Carpenter  39:01

whether AI has impacted your decision making our workflows as a CMO.

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  39:08

It's has not yet I will say that, definitely experimenting with a lot of things. The other thing that we're experimenting with as a business is AI and how to use our large datasets. You know, we have 2.5 million players that make hundreds and 1000s of pics each year, that's billions upon billions of pics, how can we use AI to gather our data, create content out of it, give people tips, tricks, trades, and make them better players in general? Right. Like, I think that's something that we're set out to go and solve as well. So, you know, from a marketing perspective, I haven't quite got there and feeling confident in the output. I know we're going to get there soon enough and working with some of these great models and releases that continue to you know, be really least into the world, that the day is coming where this will be a viable tool in the tool belt to, to make sure you're doing the best job. But I would just, you know, take it a step further and say it needs to be incorporated into the business as a whole. If you have consumers making multiple decisions and data points across your funnel, you know, whether it's acquisition or retention, that's an opportunity for you to be better as a whole and as a business. And I think we're looking into that as well.

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Jackson Carpenter  40:26

What advice do you have for up and coming marketers? Maybe someone just getting out of school trying to decide what now?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  40:32

Yeah, it's a, it's something that I thought about. And I've been lucky enough through great companies to, to ultimately get where I am today. But I would just say, once you do feel pretty competent in one space. Listen, I, here's what I'll say. I had a goal when I got out of college that I wanted to be a CMO. And then as I did more and more research, I understood that I needed to understand creative, I need to understand budgeting, I needed to understand ops, I needed to understand you know, consumer life cycles, and acquisition costs or retention and all that, if that is what you want to ultimately become. And I assume, like a lot of people listening to the TOP CMO podcasts are doing that. You continue to collect those Infinity Stones, as I mentioned earlier, where it's like, you know, if you're in the creative space, maybe expand out into marketing ops and understand like how that's really working, if you're in the data space, go into the creative space and try and understand that. But you really need to understand the full set of of marketing tools. And frankly, this I had to learn the hard way, it's if if you acquire a bunch of skills, you're not going to be really, really good at one anymore. Which, you know, gives you a lonely feeling. Sometimes, because you have a lot of specialists around you can do a lot of great things. But ultimately, understanding the full suite of what your marketing team can bring to the table, and how that can impact the business is really what you should try and acquire knowledge for throughout your career.

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Jackson Carpenter  42:02

Kyle, I'd love to do now lightning round where we're looking to answer your questions quick, maybe in a sentence. Okay, let's do it right on. What's the most important trait a CMO needs to have? Curiosity? If you could mark it any brand other than Splash sports? What would it be? Nike, what's your favorite marketing book? I

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  42:26

don't know if this is a marketing book or not? Good strategy, bad strategy.

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Jackson Carpenter  42:30

Where outside of marketing? Do you look for inspiration? Oh,

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  42:33

man, a lot of reading a lot of podcasts. I annoy the crap out of a lot of our executive team. I'll send podcasts almost every day. But you know, just listening to people is amazing.

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Jackson Carpenter  42:45

Do you have any favorite podcasts other than this one?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  42:48

No, there's there's nothing better than TOP CMO. What's your

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Jackson Carpenter  42:52

favorite marketing campaign of all time? Of all

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  42:55

time? It's got to be the original Apple Superbowl ad. And I think the guts it took to do that and the hype that it still generates. It's

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Jackson Carpenter  43:06

timeless. What is your favorite sports team?

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  43:08

Who will right now during the NBA Playoffs? Is the Denver Nuggets the defending NBA champs

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Jackson Carpenter  43:15

Kyle is there anywhere that people can keep up with you? Social media accounts anywhere where people can can hear what you have to say, Yeah, I'm

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Kyle Christensen - Splash Inc.  43:24

pretty active on LinkedIn. So you know linkedin.com/kyleJChristensen and you know, follow Splash sports on on Instagram and, and all the other social channels. We got a amazing social guy who just really speaks to our audience and he's hilarious to put

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Jackson Carpenter  43:42

Kyle Christensen thanks so much for coming on TOP CMO. Thank you for having me.

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Tom Cain  43:50

This amazing episode was brought to you by TOP Thought Leader don't forget to rate review and subscribe.

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